Happy Days: The Second Season [4 Discs]

"The 23 episodes omprising the second season of Happy Days have arrived on a four-DVD set from Paramount. There are no extras though the shows are uncut, which hasn't been the case on TV since their original network telecasts in 1974-75. The series hit its stride in this season, which was also the one in which the producers discovered precisely how popular Henry Winkler's Arthur Fonzarelli was, and began moving him to the forefront of the episodes -- but in the first episode, the focus is on Ron Howard's Richie Cunningham and his older brother Chuck (Randolph Roberts), who would soon disappear from the series. The full-screen image (1.33-to-1) is clean, sharp, and bright, though nothing special, having been shot for television in a great hurry. There are some interesting episodes, such as ""Who's Sorry Now?"", which is a direct sequel to the pilot episode ""Love and The Happy Day,"" which was folded into the anthology series Love American Style, and includes footage from the pilot; and ""Guess Who's Coming To Christmas"", which was the first to give Henry Winkler a real dramatic showcase. Each episode has been given five chapters, matching the breaks for credits and commercials in the original broadcasts -- this is handy as it allows one to skip the familiar Happy Days theme (which had replaced Bill Haley's ""Rock Around The Clock""); it's surprising that Paramount never did similarly handy edits with Star Trek. The restored digital mono audio pumps up nicely and gives good play to the oldies-flavored scoring of the episodes. There are no bonus features, and each disc opens automatically to a simple menu offering the selection of episodes."